


Wrinkles in Time

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s02e22 Two Cathedrals, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-25
Updated: 2006-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-30 17:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15101705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Josh's POV afterTwo Cathedrals. Companion piece to Laurel's "Letme Bid You Farewell".





	Wrinkles in Time

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

Title: Our Two Consciences:Wrinkles in Time  
Author: Michelle H.  
Summary: Josh's POV after 2 Cathedrals. Companion piece to Laurel's Let  
me Bid You Farewell.  
Category General J/D  
Spoilers: Through 2 Cathedrals.  
Rating: PG  
Thanks again Laurel!  
Quotes include: Indigo Girls, Shakespeare, and T.S. Eliot

  


"With every lesson learned, a line upon your beautiful face."  
Indigo Girls, Get Out the Map

"Can this really be how it works," she asked me. 

I have to admit, I wasn't paying attention. I'm sure she thought I was  
too absorbed in the President's decision, and honestly, it's been on my  
mind. But really I'd been thinking about the way her voice sounds when  
she's short on sleep, all husky, like Kathleen Turner. I'd been  
thinking about how I've finally become used to her incessant prattling,  
and how I'll miss her and her smell and the sound of her heels in the  
empty hallway when she's gone. I don't allow myself the luxury of  
imagining she'll stay. 

Bartlet hasn't broken me, although it's a possibility. Donna can, and I  
know this. That's why I refuse to think about it, the end of us. I'd  
rather believe she's already gone; it was all a hazy, lavender scented  
dream. Yet another should have, could have, would have. 

I think about the future now, not tomorrow or the day after, but years  
down the road when all of this has been reduced to another crease in my  
forehead, or maybe a weird little nervous tick. 

I wonder the obvious question, about her, but if I think about it too  
much I get all tangled up in my thoughts; it's like I pace around inside  
my head with a ball of string, everything catches on everything else and  
eventually I get caught in my own web. 

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." 

Not that I deceived anyone. 

A little association is a dangerous thing. I will go down with this  
administration, a casualty. A deceiver like the rest. Like Toby, I'll  
get a lifeboat too. As long as Leo has a job, I have a job. As long as  
I have a job, Donna will have one too, if she'll come with me. I'm not  
holding my breath, though. I have to remember: it's all a hazy,  
lavender scented dream. 

We'd make a weird little game of follow the leader; like a three person  
parade. One after the other after the other. 

How I wish I could protect her; but she's too busy protecting me. 

The God of the Jews isn't terribly merciful; at least he's never shown  
me any. I look back and all I see is tragedy upon tragedy, piling upon  
itself in my wake. There is no hope for sinners in my world; no joy  
either. 

But it's getting a lot harder to tell the sinners from the saints around  
here. I'm beginning to realize that it's a lot less cut and dried than  
that, you're not either one or the other. The President is a very  
devout man who committed a grave sin. I'm basically a good guy, when  
I'm not being ME, thinking about Catholic School girl uniforms and lap  
dances. 

I even have proof, I've got my angel of idealism. If I was as awful as  
people say I am, she would have left a long time ago. 

But I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she's gone, too. A hazy,  
lavender scented dream. 

I've lost my faith; I've got nothing left, just this dull, thudding ache  
where my heart should be. There may be no tomorrow for us, Donna and  
me. Who's to say she'd come with me, if I asked? This administration  
is going down in flames, no one would blame Donna for running, as fast  
and as far as she can go. Least of all not me. 

It's all a hazy, lavender scented dream. 

I guess we can hope Bartlet will run again, but before that, there will  
be investigation upon investigation, question after question, loophole  
upon loophole. 

It's enough to make anyone want to run fast and far away. 

So maybe it'd be better for us to just give up. Put the support behind  
Hoynes and the party might keep the White House. Donna can remember me  
as the eccentric I've always wished I was when she moves back to  
Wisconsin and marries a dairy farmer. 

Of course, there's always the possibility she'd want to work for Hoynes. 

That dairy farmer husband is looking better all the time. 

I think about time and history; not in terms of how much we've  
accomplished or what is left to do, but in terms of the creases on my  
forehead and around my eyes. Women call them wrinkles, and get very  
upset about them, and buy lots of Oil of Olay. 

For men, they're just lines of distinction and badges of honor. 

That seems like a lot of sexist bullshit. 

My father's death aged me. The shooting aged me. This will, in turn,  
age me. 

Donna isn't the naïve girl she was when she joined the campaign. She's  
a woman now, with tiny little frown lines around her eyebrows; I notice  
them when she makes her little concerned face. 

I've seen that a lot lately. 

I think about how, two years ago, I often worked through the night and  
fell asleep in the early hours of the morning, at my desk. This place  
was fuel for me. I had a reason to keep going. Now the fire is there,  
still, but it's beginning to smolder and I fear it will go out, some  
day. I'll lapse into fits of indifference, then, and eventually I won't  
even want to get out of bed. 

I think about how greatness is so very close to madness. 

Sometimes I think about the couches down in the basement, and how nice  
and soft they are. Before too long I'll be taking cat naps and watching  
The Price is Right. 

"I grow old...I grow old...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled." 

This is how it works, sweet Donnatella. A hazy, lavender scented dream  
to fill my lonely days. Something to drone on about at the rest home,  
long after anyone cares, until one day I break a hip, or something. 

You know, it's all downhill from there. 

You are my angel, Donnatella. My bright light. And someday, we will  
leave this White House and you will leave me, because my God isn't  
merciful and all I have behind me is tragedy. 

This is how it works today. 

A hazy, lavender scented dream. 

"In a minute there is time  
for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse."

  


End file.
